AAWSAP DIRD, Aneutronic Fusion Propulsion II, November 2010

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Chapter 6: Future Developments
NEAR-TERM DEVELOPMENTS
Near-term developments of fusion propulsion will include the timeframe from 2010 to
2020. It will leverage the privately funded developments in DPF, FRC, and IEC for
commercial fusion reactors, as well as the DOE developments of magneto-inertial fusion,
including magnetized target fusion and high-density plasma physics experiments.
During this timeframe, it is expected that one or more of these fusion concepts will
develop sufficient experimental data or even achieve sustained ignition breakthroughs
that will allow the technology push to proceed into aerospace propulsion applications.
The IEC thruster described in Chapter 4 is a near-term candidate to replace HCTs with
high l sp and thrust augmented by aneutronic fusion. At the same time, associated
technology development from the mainline DOE programs and ITER tokomak programs
will contribute to the import areas of the following:
•
Super conducting magnets.
•
Energy storage supercapacitors.
•
Fuel storage systems.
•
Fuel ion injection accelerators.
•
Compact high-voltage converters.
•
Direct ion energy converters.
•
Plasma propulsion systems.
Experiments and system analyses to validate the applicability of aneutronic fusion
propulsion should be conducted early on, since they may bias the path taken for the
various reactor and propulsion combinations.
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